Dutch Belt Farm funding approved by FinCom

DARTMOUTH — The Finance Committee has unanimously approved the town's expenditure of up to $33,600 to ready the nearly 80 acres of town-owned agricultural land off North Hixville Road for sale.

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By ROBERT BARBOZA

southcoasttoday.com

By ROBERT BARBOZA

Posted May. 13, 2014 at 5:35 PM

By ROBERT BARBOZA

Posted May. 13, 2014 at 5:35 PM

» Social News

DARTMOUTH — The Finance Committee has unanimously approved the town's expenditure of up to $33,600 to ready the nearly 80 acres of town-owned agricultural land off North Hixville Road for sale.

The property was purchased by the town 10 years ago for $1.6 million to keep it from being developed, and is currently being leased to farmers raising poultry and livestock, doing business as Copicut Farms.

Dartmouth Town Administrator David Cressman told the FinCom at their May 1 meeting that the Agricultural Preservation Trust would use the funds to begin the lengthy process of preparing the farm for sale with an agricultural restriction that guarantees it will never be used for anything but farming.

"It's about a 15-step process that we have to go through over the next two years in order to sell this," Mr. Cressman explained.

The funds would be used to obtain an appraisal of the property, do the title research, and finish other prep work required to get ready for the sale.

In recent years, the town has expended some funds to deal with a collapsed barn roof, the relocation of a well, and the replacement of the septic system for the farmhouse; all helped make the property more marketable.

Town Director of Budget & Finance Greg Barnes said the town was unlikely to recover the full $1.6 million purchase price from the eventual sale of the property because it will be sold with an agricultural preservation restriction that lowers the market value of the land.

He estimated the town might recoup a few hundred thousand dollars from a sale, and the proceeds would have to be proportionally shared by the three entities that contributed funds for the purchase.

The town used $1.2 million in Agricultural Preservation Trust money and $300,000 in Community Preservation Act funds for the purchase; the Dartmouth Natural Resources Trust contributed a $100,000 donation to help facilitate the deal, Mr. Barnes reported.

At the time, town officials "were very worried it would be sold for development, so we purchased it to preserve it for agriculture," he said. The town will seek some state funding to purchase the agricultural restriction to be placed on the property, he indicated.

While the purchase will not produce a profit for the town, "keeping it as agricultural land, and to preserve it as open space"¦ I think it was a good investment for Dartmouth," Mr. Cressman told the FinCom.